history

In early August 1944, during the first days of the Warsaw Uprising, the Germans and their Eastern collaborators committed appalling atrocities that are still filling our hearts with horror despite 77 years that have passed since then. The Wola massacre was a systematic murder of tens of thousands of inhabitants of the Warsaw district of Wola. The apogee of the slaughter fell on 5 and 6 August 1944. On the following days the massacre continued, but the killings were not as massive as during the two most tragic days.

At that time, Wola was the westernmost district of Warsaw. Its main communication axes were the streets leading towards the city centre: Górczewska Street, passing into Leszno Street; Wolska Street, with its extension – Chłodna Street, and perpendicular Okopowa Street. It was a district of craftsmen and workers hired in the numerous factories located in this part of Warsaw. It was definitely not a rich neighbourhood. The Wola district was populated with multi-generational families living in tight-knit communities with their neighbours. Because of the Wola massacre people who had created the history of this district vanished almost overnight.

Although between 1 and 4 August, the Polish resistance’s actions were not fully successful, the Germans did not have enough forces to suppress the Uprising either. At that time, the main German force was the Hermann Göring Panzer Division, with whom the Poles clashed without success. The insurgents were captured and then murdered. The cruellest atrocities were also committed by other German units forming the Warsaw garrison.

Until the end of the first phase of the Uprising, the insurgents could rely on the support of the civilian population, engaged for example in erecting barricades in the streets. Initially, the German attacks were not aimed at defeating the fighting Polish units, but rather gaining control over the Środmieście district, which they did. To enhance their effectiveness, the Germans began to use captured civilians as human shields for their tanks. As the insurgents refused to kill Poles, the German tanks fought their way to the city centre.

From the very beginning of the Uprising, the German troops used their terror tactics: people were driven out of their homes, which were then set on fire, while insurgents (and alleged insurgents) were captured and murdered on the spot. Civilians were shot, while those hiding in cellars were murdered with grenades. A detention point was organised at St. Adalbert’s church. But for the residents of Wola, the worst was yet to come.

Informed about the fighting in Warsaw, SS-Reichsfűhrer Heinrich Himmler ordered the battle group led by Heinz Reinefarth to quell the rebellion, also in Wola. The German forces consisted of police battalions from Wartheland, the soldiers of the .SS Grenadier 36th Division “Dirlewanger” and collaborationist units consisting of Soviet citizens, as well as SS RONA Assault Brigade (composed mainly of Russians and Belarusians, distinguished by its ruthlessness in Ochota district of Warsaw) and two battalions composed of Azerbaijanis (a part of Special Unit “Bergmann” and the 1st Azerbaijani Field Battalion, which was a part of 111th Wehrmacht Infantry Regiment). Command over all German forces in Warsaw was taken by General SS Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski.

On 5 August, the pacification forces began the mass murder in Wola. Till the midday their actions were chaotic, but later that day they turned into planned massacre of the Wola population. As Germans were advancing towards Śródmieście, houses along Wolska Street and neighbouring districts were set on fire one by one. Some of the victims were burned alive, others were shot immediately or rushed to dozens of execution sites in the district, where they awaited death. No one was spared, regardless of age, everyone was bestially murdered. Small children were thrown into burning buildings and torn away from their mothers who were trying to save them. The scale of the crime is reflected in the long list of main execution sites combined with the approximate number of the victims: the area of Moczydło and Górczewska Streets (where the people expelled from their homes were gathered in the railroad workshops) – 10 to 12 thousand people killed; the Ursus factory on Wolska 55 – 6 to 7.5 thousand people murdered; in the Franaszek’s factory on Wolska 41/45 – from 4 to 6 thousand victims. The executions in the area of tramway depot on Młynarska Street, in Sowinski Park and on Wolska 120 cost over thousand lives. In other locations tens to hundreds of people were killed that day. On 5 August, the Germans executed about 350 patients and members of staff in Wola Hospital, and over one thousand in St. Lazarus Hospital.

On the same day, in the evening, the Commander-in-Chief of the German forces in Warsaw, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, issued an order forbidding the murder of women and children. Nevertheless, he was not led by humanitarian motives – he calculated that mass murders would strengthen the resistance of the insurgents, and his priority was to “unblock” the city as soon as possible (the Germans were fighting the Soviets on the right bank of the Vistula at that time and Warsaw was an important supply route). The order, however, was not respected right away.

On 6 August, an indiscriminate slaughter continued. Most of people were murdered that day in factory warehouse on Wolska 79/81 (around 2 thousand victims, including 30 Redemptorists from monastery on Karolkowa street). Moreover, executions were carried out in: the already mentioned Franaszek’s factory, in the area adjacent to St. Lawrence’s church, and near Wolski Hospital where several hundred people were killed, including insurgents taken captive. The victims of Azerbaijani units collaborating with the Germans also included 200 to 300 people at Karol and Maria Hospital. Both German and allied units tortured and raped women and girls. They did not spare small children, smashing their heads or throwing them into the fire alive.

After two days of slaughter, the streets of Wola were full of decaying human corpses. The Germans, who wanted to prevent the spread of epidemic (and probably also to cover up their crimes), formed special groups of captured Poles – Verbrennungskommando – who were ordered to burn the bodies. Many of these men were murdered after completing their task.

As it was mentioned before, people expelled from Warsaw were detained on the territory of St. Adalbert’s church. On 6 August, these people were herded to a transition camp in Pruszków near Warsaw. In the following days many expelled inhabitants of Warsaw were transported by trains from the West Railway Station. Both in the detention point and on their way to the camp, the inhabitants of Wola fell victims to robberies and rapes, committed by the German soldiers and by the collaborationist units escorting them. People who could not cope with the hardships of the march were executed.

On 7 August, the advancing Germans were strengthening their positions and moving further towards the Środmieście district. That day, the executions claimed about 4,000 victims. The main execution sites were Hale Mirowskie and the area of St. Lawrence’s church, mentioned before. Executions of already decimated population of the Wola, insurgents and inhabitants of other districts of Warsaw continued also in later days. However, they did not reap such a bloody harvest like on 5- 7 August 1944.

The exact number of victims of the Wola massacre has not been established by now. Estimated number of people killed during this military action ranged from 15 thousand (which seems unlikely) to over 60 thousand inhabitants of the district. Nowadays it is assumed that the deadly toll of the Wola massacre reached 35-50 thousand lives. Most of the district’s buildings were destroyed, including numerous industrial plants. In many cases, families living together were exterminated in their entirety. Many of those who managed to survive did not return to their homes after the war. The victims were not just those killed. The witnesses who remained alive struggled for years with their tragic past – mothers and fathers who saw their children die, orphaned children who had to go wandering alone….

After 1945, the exhumation of the murdered inhabitants of Wola and victims from other parts of the city commenced. Two years after the slaughter of Wola, the official funeral of the murdered took place. About 100 coffins, each containing from 8 to 12 tons of human ashes, were buried in the Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery.

But what happened with the perpetrators of this massive crime? The case of Heinz Reinefarth, the SS commander responsible for pacification, is particularly shocking. Despite being arrested by American troops, he was not extradited to Poland. After 1949, he began his political career: from 1951 to 1957, he was the Mayor of Westerland in Germany, and in 1958, he assumed the position of a member of the Schleswik-Holstein local parliament. The Reinefarth’s case was investigated twice until a decision of the discontinuation of proceedings was finally made in 1967. The German courts did not deny that crimes were committed in Wola, but allegedly no evidence was found to hold Reinefarth accountable. Moreover, the executioner of Wola, was awarded a financial compensation of 100 thousand West German marks for the protracted proceedings that were carried out against him. This might have been influenced by the Nazi past of the police officers, judges and prosecutors handling the case. For the last few years of his life, he pursued his career as an attorney. He died in 1979. He was never convicted for any of his war crimes.

Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski was a prosecution witness at the Nuremberg Trials after 1945. Imprisoned several times in post-war Germany, he was finally sentenced to life imprisonment in 1962. None of the sentences, however, concerned his activity during the Warsaw Uprising or crimes committed during the occupation of Latvia, Belarus, Russia and the Eastern borderlands of Poland. He died in 1972 while serving a prison sentence.

Oskar Dirlewanger, the commander of the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, was captured by French troops in 1945 and killed in prison, probably by Polish guards or fellow prisoners.

Bibliography

• N. Davies, Powstanie ‘44 (Rising ‘44), translated to Polish by E. Tabakowska, Kraków 2004.
• K. Komorowski, Bitwa o Warszawę ‘44. Militarne aspekty Powstania Warszawskiego (Battle of Warsaw ‘44 Military aspects of the Warsaw Uprising), Warsaw 2004.
• H. Kuberski, Walki SS-Sonderregiment Dirlewanger o Wolę a egzekucje zbiorowe ludności cywilnej (Fights of SS-Sonderregiment Dirlewanger for Wola and mass executions of civilians), „Dzieje Najnowsze”, vol. 53, no 1, p. 137-176.
• P. Gursztyn, Rzeź Woli. Zbrodnia nierozliczona (The Wola Massacre. Unaccounted for Crime), Warsaw 2021.
• A. L. Sowa, Kto wydał wyrok na miasto? Plany operacyjne ZWZ-AK (1940-1944) i sposoby ich realizacji (Who passed a sentence on the city? Operational plans of ZWZ-AK (1940-1944) and the ways of their realization), Kraków 2016.